1 Samuel 15:1-9

The LORD Rejects Saul as King

1 Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD.

2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.

3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy^[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ ”

4 So Saul summoned the men and mustered them at Telaim—two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand from Judah.

5 Saul went to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the ravine.

6 Then he said to the Kenites, “Go away, leave the Amalekites so that I do not destroy you along with them; for you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites.

7 Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt.

8 He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword.

9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves^[b] and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.

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1 Samuel 15:1-9 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 15

In this chapter are recorded the order Saul had from the Lord to destroy Amalek utterly, 1Sa 15:1-3 the preparation he made to put it in execution, and the success thereof, 1Sa 15:4-9 the offence the Lord took at his not obeying his order thoroughly, with which Samuel was made acquainted, and which grieved him, 1Sa 15:10,11, upon which he went out to meet Saul, and reprove him; and a long discourse upon the subject passed between them, the issue of which was, that by an irrevocable decree he was rejected from being king, 1Sa 15:12-31 and the chapter is concluded with an account of Samuel's hewing in pieces Agag king of Amalek, and of his final departure from Saul, 1Sa 15:32-35.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 9

1. S 1 Samuel 9:16
2. S Genesis 14:7; S 1 Samuel 14:48; S 2 Samuel 1:8; Exodus 17:8-14; Numbers 24:20; Deuteronomy 25:17-19
3. ver 9,19; S Genesis 14:23; Numbers 24:20; Deuteronomy 20:16-18; Joshua 6:17; 1 Samuel 22:19; 1 Samuel 27:9; 1 Samuel 28:18; Esther 3:13; Esther 9:5
4. S Genesis 15:19; Exodus 18:10,19; Numbers 10:29-32; Numbers 24:22; Judges 1:16; Judges 4:1; 1 Samuel 30:29
5. S 1 Samuel 14:48
6. S Genesis 16:7; Genesis 25:17-18; Exodus 15:22
7. Exodus 17:8-16; S Numbers 24:7
8. S Joshua 8:23; 1 Samuel 30:1
9. S ver 3; ver 3,15

Footnotes 2

[a]. The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them; also in verses 8, 9, 15, 18, 20 and 21.
[b]. Or "the grown bulls" ; the meaning of the Hebrew for this phrase is uncertain.